Well Al you remember me writeing to you about that little girl down in Texas that sent me the note in the sox.  Well I got to thinking it over and the more I thought about it I got to thinking that it wasn’t the square thing to not pay no attention to her when she maybe wore her hands to the bone and strained her eyes so as my feet would keep warm so finely I set down and answered her back and I didn’t say nothing mushy of course but just a friendly note to let her know I received the sox and I told her they was a perfect fit and I asked her where it was she ever seen me or my picture or how she come to pick me out and I didn’t tell her nothing about being married because what would be the use of hurting her and they can’t be no harm done because we will never meet and as soon as she writes and tells me where she seen me that will end it.  But I just couldn’t stand it to think of the poor kid running to the door every time the mail man come and maybe crying when they wasn’t nothing for her.  I guess Florrie wouldn’t have no objections under the circumstances but if she did find out and start to ball me out I would tell her to take a jump in the lake because she never even mended me a pair of sox to say nothing about knit them.  I also asked the girl to send me a picture of herself because it tickles them to be asked for their picture and of course as soon as I get it I will tear it up but she won’t know that.

[Illustration:  5 or 4 of us bumped into each other and I got a kick in the head (p. 117).]

Well Al I decided to not play on the football club here after all.  In the 1st. place theys 3 or 4 privates trying for the club and I don’t believe in mixing up with them to much and if Whiting and them other officers wants to all right, but that don’t make it all right in my mind.  And besides I figured it wasn’t fair to either myself or Capt.  Nash to run the risk of getting hurt in some fool game to say nothing about learning a lot of fool signals that don’t mean nothing but just learning them takes up your time that you ought to spend thinking how to improve your command.  And another thing the minute they started to practice I seen they didn’t know the fame and they will get licked every time they play and I can’t stand to be with a looser.  They talked about what a great kicker this Shiverick is but I watched him trying to kick gools and he missed 3 out of 10 and one of them rolled right along the ground like a baby had kicked it.

Capt.  Whiting come up to me when I come out on the field and asked me my name and etc. and what position did I play and I told him center rush or tackle back it didn’t make no difference.  So he asked me what college I played at and I told him Harvard which was the 1st. thing that come into my head.  So he says “All right we need a good tackle back so you can play there now in signal practice” so they lined up and I stood back of the center rush and they called out some numbers and throwed the ball to one of them and 3 or 4 of us bumped into each other and fell down and I got a bad kick in the head but it wasn’t bad enough to make me quit but what is the use of takeing chances.  They can have their football Al if they want to waist the govt. time but I got enough to think about thinking about winning this war.